Wednesday, May 4, 2011

The Woman behind Reina: Yumiko Hotta

Yumiko Hotta (in white) has been feared for her wicked strikes since she entered AJW in 1985. The segement of her 1995 match against Manami Toyota will give you a sense of her stiffness. In launching Reina, she has reached out to her old AJW adversary, Mima Shimoda, now living in Mexico and working for CMLL, and they have agreed to bring old NEO performers together with CMLL lucha libre girls to form the new promotion with a lucha accent. For good measure Hotta has reached out to Hailey Hatred who had many connections in Mexico as well as in the indy scene in the USA. Hailey is helping to bring the likes of Annie Social, Rain, Roxie Cotton, and Mia Yim to Japan this month for the Reina 1, 2, & 3 events on May 8, 15, and 22 respectively. respectively.
Hotta's kicks are so devastating that she out-Kana-ed Kana before Kana even existed. There is no doubt that Kana had a good model for her stiff, serious, no-sell attitude and that was Yumiko Hotta. (Kana saw Hotta regularly when she worked for AtoZ and Kana was a rookie with that promotion).